Adjunct Faculty (2007-08)

Renee BargerAdjunct Instructor, DanceArts and Humanities Division

In the Dance Department at Howard Community College, Renee has served as an adjunct faculty member for four years. She has choreographed numerous dance concerts for the students and in the community, and has collaborated extremely well with other departments in the Arts. Her continued efforts as a mentor to the dance majors have made a huge impact on student retention in the dance program.

Renee teaches many courses for the Dance Department, such as Modern I-IV, Ballet I-IV, Dance Composition, and Dance Improvisation. Every class she teaches is full of happy students who are thrilled with the quality of the class work. This past fall she accepted the part-time position of Assistant Coordinator of Dance, in which she assists Jenny Male, Coordinator of Dance, with the HCC Dance newsletter, dance studio maintenance, student advising, and dance concert organization. Renee has choreographed over ten dances for Dance Department concerts. She also choreographed two for last year’s Dance Company performance.

Due to Renee’s high quality choreography and her popularity as a teacher and choreographer, she was asked to choreograph and direct the Student Arts Collective’s Dance Company this year. She will be creating a vision for the show and be the one responsible for bringing it to fruition. Renee also takes the time to nurture the dance majors along in their artistic growth as performers. She strives to teach the students how to behave in a professional manner for auditions, rehearsals, and performances of a dance company.

In the fall of 2007, plans we put in place to create a dance piece to promote the opening of the Rodin exhibit. Renee was asked to choreograph ten students in a modern dance tribute to Rodin using several of his famous sculptures. Her choreography was wonderful, and the students’ enthusiasm was amazing. The piece was performed several times at various functions celebrating the Rodin exhibit and was tremendously successful. This was a great way to intertwine the disciplines of the Art and Dance Departments. Renee is a fantastic teacher, mentor, choreographer, and colleague. She truly deserves this recognition for all the hard work she has done for HCC.

Theresa Lui is very effective in helping students understand the concepts and use practical skills in the course CMSY-110 “Software Applications”. She used up-to-date examples and information and used questions and activities to stimulate higher levels of learning such as critical thinking and problem-solving. Ms. Lui is very knowledgeable about the subject matter and she presented the material in a logical manner; her step-by-step explanations are always clear and easy to understand. By using Net Support Tutor to centrally instruct her students on their own computers, she is effective in keeping students focused.

During the transitional period from MS Office 2003 to MS Office 2007, Theresa became a valuable resource for faculty; she participated in the long process of choosing the right text book for the students, as well as gave recommendations on chapters to use for the custom book. She volunteered and participated in the pilot program of SAM 2003. As a result the new version of that software we are planning to investigate more for the possible use for all CMSY-110 sections. For a week on her free time during the summer she tested “My IT lab” and “SAM 2007”, the software we were investigating for the use in the classrooms. Together with Guy Bunyard, faculty from Mathematics division Ms. Lui created two Extra Power Point Presentations to use in addition to those on the instructor's CD on the difficult topics “Margins, Indents, and Tabs” and “What is a Percent”. Those presentations are posted on departmental CE6 site for all CMSY-110 faculty to use. During the departmental CMSY-110 meeting in the Spring 2008, Ms. Lui trained part-time faculty to use the new version of Exam View 5.2. She is one of the most reliable, knowledgeable and kind faculty our division is lucky to have.

Linda Evans has taught in the Basic Skills area of Continuing Education and Workforce Development since 1992. She began by teaching at Grassroots in a class for the homeless population living in the shelter. In 1994, she began working with employees from the Howard County Public School System and the community at large teaching the reading and writing skills portion of the basic skills course. She works closely with the employees’ supervisors at the Howard County Public Schools (HCPSS) to ensure the students’ success and with the External Diploma Program to meet students’ goal of earning a Maryland High School Diploma through the National External Diploma Program. Linda has been the anchor for this course maintaining consistency of instruction and goal attainment. In addition to doing an excellent job preparing her students to meet their goals, Linda has helped at least 35 students earn their high school diplomas through the External Diploma Program. In addition to her outstanding teaching ability, Linda is also in charge of arranging contract training courses with businesses in Howard County whose employees need Basic Skills training. Finally, Linda has taken charge of the ABE registration procedures and policies and trained many new staff members to be part of this process

Dave Goodwin holds a BA in English Literature and an MFA in Creative Writing and Publishing Arts from the University of Baltimore. He is the author of Tripwires, a collection of short stories. Since 2003 Dave has taught composition for the English/World Languages Division. In the past year, Dave tackled new challenges to serve the division, including shooting, directing, editing, and producing a video to help share the culture and mission of our division and learning CE6 on a compressed schedule to teach online classes this spring. A clear favorite with students who admire his friendly, outgoing demeanor in the classroom, he is the unanimous choice for outstanding adjunct instructor from his equally admiring colleagues.

Annie QuinnAdjunct Instructor, NursingHealth Sciences Division

Annie Quinn is an exceptional clinical faculty member. She goes above and beyond; not only is she 100% reliable, Annie completes all work accurately and on time with very little supervision. Accurate documentation of student performance in clinical is a critical program element. Annie holds study sessions for her students in her home every week. She is a tremendous student advocate and passionate about helping students become the best nurses they can be. She is also a wonderful asset for full-time faculty. Annie voluntarily attends exam reviews and evaluates exam questions with FT faculty to lend additional expertise by providing the most current and up-to-date clinical perspective. She assists faculty with study guides. Annie did not plan on teaching clinical this semester, however when another faculty cancelled the night before the start of clinical, not only did she immediately volunteer to help, she took it upon herself to go Howard County General Hospital and advocate for the use of the floor we had previously released. This was a critical step. Floors are reserved and released based upon student enrolment and contracted instructors. Instructors can not switch to another agency or floor without extensive orientation. Annie’s advocacy enabled the course to proceed without interruption of clinical experience, insuring that students would receive the best clinical instruction that could be provided. She is the best example of what we wish all our adjunct clinical faculty would be.

Dr. David HessAdjunct Instructor, CalculusMathematics Division

Dr. David Hess began teaching for the Mathematics Division in Fall 2001. He has a Ph.D. from Johns Hopkins University in Mechanical Engineering. In addition to his engineering skills David has outstanding mathematical depth and the ability to communicate complex topics to students. David is a kind and understanding professional who works well with both students and faculty and spends extensive additional hours working with students outside of class. He has taught a wide range of upper division mathematics courses including calculus 1, calculus 2, calculus 3 and discrete structures at HCC and fluid dynamics at JHU. His classroom activities are enriched by the working knowledge of mathematics which he brings from his fulltime job at Naval Surface Warfare Center in Bethesda. He has contributed additional lab application projects to the calculus program and worked extensively on a computer program refinement to the computer algebra system used in those courses. The Mathematics Division greatly appreciates the level of excellence that David contributes to the program targeted at the engineering, mathematics and computer science students at HCC.

The Science and Technology Division’s Outstanding Adjunct Faculty Member is Deanna Marquart. Deanna joined the HCC faculty in 2001, teaching Human Anatomy and Physiology I and II labs and General Physics labs. Deanna has also contributed to curriculum development in these courses by developing prelab activities for physics students, creating presentation materials for A&P faculty and designing collaborative activities to engage A&P students working in teams in the lab. Deanna makes herself available to help her students, and other students, during the day and in the evening. She is always willing to teach a lab section at any time when the division has an unfilled need, and often will act as a substitute with little or no notice. Students comment that she is organized and thorough and provides them with assistance in the form of ungraded “mini” practicals and excellent tips for learning large amounts of material. Students also say “but she truly cares and is always willing to answer questions and offer explanation when information is unclear”. Deanna is a valuable asset to our Science team.

Harry Traurig has been an adjunct at HCC since 1997. During that time he has taught our Introduction to Criminal Justice, Criminology and Introduction to Corrections courses. He is always accommodating about times and courses and has been awarded Senior Adjunct status.